


Nothing of Consequence

by Deannie



Series: Two Gentlemen of Atlantis [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:52:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney looks for a distraction, but gets more than he wanted... but maybe just what he needed. Written originally for the sga_flashfic "bloody" challenge. Added to and edited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing of Consequence

**Author's Note:**

> Two Gentlemen of Atlantis was originally meant to chronicle the whole run of Atlantis episodes, but life intervened. This and Remembering How to Play the Game are orphans of a sort, casualties of a busy life. Perhaps I'll come back and finish the rest. Some day...
> 
> Thanks to Jenny and NAT, who betaed this so many moons ago!

It was interesting.

Well, okay, it  _would_  have been interesting. What really sapped the interest from the whole thing was the fact that he was currently lying on a floor scattered with debris from a not-so-minor structural collapse. And of course it didn't help that one of those pretty, futuristic-looking windows the Ancients seemed so fond of had landed on his leg.  _After_  the thing had broken. He'd probably lose the leg now. Hobble around Atlantis for the rest of his natural life (and did Carson even bring any crutches?). Of course, that was assuming he didn't bleed to death first. And all of it would have been more interesting, really, if the radios worked and they could call for help.

Would have been interesting if Sheppard came looking for them anyway... He wondered if the city could somehow  _sense_  that they were in trouble and let the control room know, and dismissed the thought just as quickly. Cities weren't conscious entities--even in the Pegasus Galaxy. Still, maybe there was a subroutine...

Rodney McKay realized that he was babbling, so he forcibly returned his thoughts to their original position and started again.

 _It was interesting_  that Radek Zelenka dealt with this crisis the same way he seemed to deal with everything. He was calm, a little bemused-professory, and basically incredibly intent on what he was doing. For that last, Rodney could only be very, very glad, because what Zelenka was currently trying to do was to save Rodney's life.

"It is not that the radios don't work," Zelenka said quietly, talking mostly to himself in the dim light of the ruined lab. "It is that they cannot receive or transmit."

Rodney just stared for a moment, willing his leg to stay attached as a minute tremor ran from his instep all the way up past the blood-soaked tourniquet to his hip. "Excuse me, but how is that--in any language--to be construed as the radios 'working'?"

Zelenka gave him a look over the edge of his glasses and Rodney was absurdly reminded of his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Marcus (he thought that was her name), who used to give him just that look for finishing his math work half an hour before the rest of the kids.

He always hated that woman.

"The room is obviously shielded," the Czech replied, sounding too pedantic for Rodney's taste. "Or perhaps the collapse has simply made the area around us too dense for transmission to occur."

"Which does absolutely nothing to prevent me bleeding out, does it?" Rodney snapped, pausing to breathe while the room spun around him slowly. He was really hoping Zelenka could figure this out on his own, because he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be conscious for too much longer. Or alive. But that was a panic attack for another time.

"The tourniquet has stopped the bleeding," Zelenka assured him placidly, like Rodney was no more than a first aid doll for him to train on. "For now."

"Oh thank you," Rodney sniped back, his headache building again. "Very nice. And while I'm  _not_  bleeding out, I'll just be  _losing a limb_  over here!" The real problem with Zelenka was that he had no sense of compassion. Rodney rubbed his clean arm over his eyes--the arm that wasn't covered in blood from the slightly less severe wound at his elbow. It was to help with the headache, of course--because at no time had he shed tears from the excruciating pain in his leg.

Funny that Zelenka had managed to come out of this with nothing more than a scratch on his forehead. There was some kind of cosmic payback going on here, and Rodney, for one, didn't like it one bit. And to add insult to life-threatening injury, now the damn Czech was  _scoffing_  at him! "If the tourniquet is loosened for a few moments at regular intervals, you will be perfectly safe, McKay. I assure you."

Rodney snorted, then clutched his head as the force of the air out of his lungs took most of his grey matter with it. "What are you, a medical doctor, now?"

And then a weird thing happened. It was something the major had once said, and Rodney had thought he was just... being Major Sheppard. But it happened--Zelenka blinked. It was sort of a sad blink, but it was definitely just the kind of "now you know I have a secret" blink that Sheppard had been talking about.

"What?" Rodney asked, pressing his advantage. Sheppard would be proud. "You mean to tell me you  _are_  a medical doctor?" He tried to remember Zelenka's file...

"I believe, if I can use one to boost the signal of the other," Zelenka mused, clearly fighting to ignore the question as he picked up Rodney's radio and began fiddling with it, too, "it should be possible to overcome density. Though possibly not shielding."

The tone of his voice was so studied in its nonchalance that Rodney felt a strange sensation in his chest. That  _had_  been a pretty sad blink, really. "Radek?" he asked, quiet now, with possibly more caring than most people in this room thought he had in him. It was surely the result of imminent death, but Rodney went with it anyway.

A sad, small smile broke across the Czech's features. "Ah. So now you know my name, yes?"

Rodney shook his head, ignoring the lights that flickered across his vision at the movement. He really was going to pass out soon. "I'm serious, Zelenka," he whispered, feeling that, for some reason, this might actually be almost as important as his approaching demise. "What did I say?"

It took a minute, but Zelenka finally turned fully toward him, and his eyes were tired. "Dusana was a doctor for many years," he stated quietly. "She worked in emergency room in Checniska."

"Dusana--that's who, your wife?" Funny, Rodney never knew Radek had a wife. And where the hell was Checniska, anyway? Maybe in Russia? Rodney dimly remembered that Zelenka had done some work for the Russian government--that was how he'd gotten the posting to Antarctica, if he recalled--

Any further recollections were suddenly, forcefully, ripped from his mind as his leg spasmed painfully. "Ow. Ow, ow, fuck ow!"

Zelenka moved swiftly, reaching out to rub the area above the tourniquet. It felt good--hurt like hell, but it was a good hurt. Sort of. "Is time to loosen this, anyway." If Rodney could have thought through his pain, he'd have processed the relief in his companion's voice at the interruption. As it was, his brain filed it away for later study, as it did everything that wasn't needed immediately.

"McKay."

Rodney looked up at the serious tone, and met eyes filled with regret. Okay, so the guy wasn't  _totally_  lacking in compassion.

"This will hurt."

And with that incredible understatement, Zelenka carefully loosened the tourniquet. Rodney allowed the sight of his own blood flowing a little too steadily from under the makeshift bandage to center him. To stop him from screaming. Because yes, it hurt and yes, he  _was_  going to bleed to death and yes, he really did wish it would be soon so he could stop hurting. A distraction, he thought, as the blinking lights before his eyes became more pronounced. That was what he needed. A distraction.

"So--" he sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the thought that raced to the forefront of his mind, yelling at him that that would only speed the flow of blood from his thigh. At least it kept the flashing lights at bay. "So, where's Checniska? Russia?"

Zelenka's face had grown stony as he carefully watched the three-inch laceration below his makeshift tourniquet. Rodney wasn't sure he'd ever seen that particular hardness to those features. "Yes," he answered absently. "Near Chechnya." He was silent for a long moment, and Rodney was too focused on the increasing buzz in his ears to pursue the conversation. After what seemed like a pint of blood leaked out, Zelenka took the pipe he'd used to fashion the tourniquet in his hands.

"This will hurt again," he said bluntly.

Rodney would have liked to have shot back some sort of witty rejoinder to that, but the buzzing became a kind of silent scream as he steeled himself while Zelenka twisted the pipe, cutting off the flow of blood once more. It was all McKay could do to breathe for a minute, and when he could focus again, Radek was sort of... staring off into space.

His eyes were distant, and pained, and for some reason, it made Rodney's head hurt.

So, being Rodney, he tried to talk away the pain. "So... Dusana?"

Okay, that was mean. Zelenka turned from him almost immediately and went back to fiddling with the radios. It took a long, long moment for Rodney's mind to put it all together--he blamed the blood loss that was making it harder and harder to move. Or breathe, for that matter.

Radek obviously loved his wife. And a guy who loved his wife that much would hardly leave her on Earth--even with the chance that Atlantis offered, nobody sane would give up love for it. Well, there was Elizabeth, but...

Babbling. Again.

So, Zelenka was sane. And he loved his wife. Which meant...

"What happened?" Was he really going to ask this? That was just... insult to injury. Well, he knew all about that, didn't he? Still, he cringed a little at the tense set of Zelenka's shoulders. Not that it stopped him. "I mean, you wouldn't just leave--"

"It was a long time ago." And that was it. Or Radek  _wanted_  that to be it. Fortunately, Rodney had never been very good at picking up cues like that.

"So...?"

Zelenka sighed heavily and placed the radios on the floor with great care.

"Why do you want to know this?" he asked incredulously, turning a little, so Rodney could see his face in profile. "You are..." He shook his head in irritation. "Why does this matter to you?"

Rodney gave him a half-hearted grin, for once not coming close to knowing the answer to a question. "It passes the time." He was trying for affable. It always seemed to work for the major.

But his companion just glared at him for a long moment before bending over his work, muttering darkly, "You are a selfish little man, McKay."

"Oh, come on, Radek," Rodney pleaded quietly, not bothering to examine  _why_  it was so important. But there was that pain in the back of Zelenka's eyes, and that hitch to his voice, and he'd obviously been thinking about  _someone_  when he was staring off into space... And it was important. It just was. "I just... I'm curious."

"Curious," Zelenka barked. After a moment he turned back, his features closed and angry. Again, it was so different from anything that Rodney had seen from him before. It rattled him. "Yes, I left to come here. She is dead--Anezka is dead--there is nothing left, so I came here." He turned away, and Rodney had the grace to be a little bit disgusted with himself for prying.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Zelenka's shoulders slumped, as he admitted quietly, "I did not tell you."

Silence reigned in the darkness while Rodney tried to ignore his growing weakness. It somehow was a little less important now. Radek was... He'd screwed up. A distraction had turned into something he'd never intended, and he wasn't sure how to fix it. Honestly, he wasn't sure he had the energy  _left_  to fix it.

"Radek..." The olive branch was a little breathless, but genuine, nonetheless.

Zelenka dropped his chin to his chest. "Why use that name?"

What? "Why not? It's your name."

"No," Radek denied, looking him in the eye. "To you, I am 'Zinka' or 'Zelny'--occasionally even Zelenka. I am never Radek to you."

"I don't know," Rodney admitted readily, his own gaze dropping at the truth in his companion's words. He thought about it as hard as his buzzing brain would let him. "Maybe what they say is true--near death situations breed familiarity."

"Near death!" Zelenka scoffed. He suddenly glanced at Rodney's blood-soaked leg and sobered. "Perhaps," he allowed slowly. "Perhaps."

Rodney nodded, sensing an opening. "So, since we're being so familiar..." He watched Zelenka's shoulders hunch again but pressed on gently. "Tell me about Dusana. And Anezka."

It was inevitable, really. Since he'd first mentioned his wife's name, Zelenka was bound to spill the whole story. Rodney thought dimly, as his companion started to talk, that Radek was maybe even a little glad to tell it. Like he needed  _someone_  to know.

"Chechnya... is not the best place to live too close to. There were many terrorist bombings in Checniska. One was at the hospital." He was silent for a long moment. "Anezka was visiting her mother. 'Helping.'" There was a fond smile on his face, and Rodney felt a tremor in his chest.

"How old was she?" he breathed, afraid that talking too loudly would dispel his companion's open mood.

"Five," Radek responded in a whisper. "Too young for school and..." He shrugged, and finished simply, "Too young."

There was really nothing to say to that. Hell, there was nothing to say to any of it at this point, was there? What did you say to a guy who'd lost his wife and child? Sorry just didn't seem to cut it, did it? Rodney let the buzz just take over for a while, relishing the light-headedness that let him almost forget what the man beside him had gone through.

For his part, Radek had turned back to the radios, and was building a bridge of wire between the transmitters on the pair of them. He worked with the intensity he always gave everything, but Rodney could see a desperation to the single-mindedness now--something he hadn't ever thought to notice before in the affable scientist.

Not even desperation, really... Rodney wasn't sure what it was, but he found himself wondering if it had been in Radek's eyes before he lost his family.

"Radek, I--"

"--Kay? Zelenka!" Major Sheppard's voice blew apart Rodney's thought process as it squalled out of the jury-rigged super radio. "Come in."

Radek smiled brilliantly at his companion, and it was like they'd never had their previous conversation. He was right back to the sunny, pleasant mad scientist he'd always been. Was that how it worked? Just stuff it all back in the past where it belonged?

Rodney wished he had that kind of strength.

"This is Dr. Zelenka, Major," the Czech responded eagerly. "We were caught in structural collapse in--"

"--the East Pier," Sheppard broke in. "Yeah, we finally got lifesigns on you guys about three minutes ago." He sounded stressed. Not as stressed as Rodney himself was, of course, but stressed. Kind of warmed the heart, really. Which was a damn good thing because, with the blood loss, Rodney definitely wasn't feeling warm anywhere else. The fact that he was starting to shake now made him that much more thankful for Sheppard's good timing.

"Would have been nice if you guys had been around to figure out how to deactivate the protective barriers that went up," the major continued. "Grodin managed to shut some of them down, but we're having a hard time getting to you. Any idea why that happened? He said something about a weird energy pattern... Something in there you don't want the rest of us to know about?"

Rodney would have laughed, if he'd had the energy. He shared a companionable smile with Radek, choosing--like his... friend--to ignore the darkness in their shared knowledge.

"There appears to be nothing of consequence, Major," Radek replied after a moment, his expression asking for continued silence on Rodney's part--something Rodney was only too happy to give. "Only two men who would very much like to be rescued, thank you."

Sheppard's voice held a grin that Radek mirrored. "One rescue, coming up."

Rodney lay back with a sigh as Zelenka filled Sheppard in on their conditions. He felt his body finally letting go, now that it knew he was close to safety, and he greyed out to the sound of his friends talking over a tinny, crackling radio...

* * * * * * *

"Ow!" Rodney glared at Carson in a way that couldn't remotely be called good-natured. He'd woken up in medical, being used as a quilt by one of Carson's medtechs. And now Carson had come by to look at the mess the guy had made of the suturing. "That's still attached, you know? No thanks to you!"

Carson gave a hard glare of his own as he finished rewrapping McKay's now-stitched leg wound. Forget what Rodney had thought about Radek--Carson had no compassion  _at all_. "I  _can_  still amputate, if you'd like."

"Oh, and you'd love that, too, wouldn't you?"

"Don't tempt him, McKay." Zelenka had a full-on laugh in his voice. "You will only give him ideas for the next time you are lying unconscious in his medical bay."

Rodney snorted. At least his head didn't want to fall off when he did that now. He guessed that was progress, of a sort. "I'm not going to end up back in here, Zelenka," he bit back, shifting painfully on his bunk as Radek moved to stand beside it. "Because I'm never going to check any 'errant energy readings' with you. Ever again."

Zelenka let that roll right off his back, just like Carson was always doing. In fact, he shared this annoying little grin with Carson, as the doctor sadistically patted Rodney's half-severed leg on his way out of the room. Like they shared some common bond.

People really were just incredibly annoying.

"What do you want, anyway?" Rodney asked irritably. Well, he wasn't entirely irritated, really. He figured he and Zelenka had come to a very nice little understanding in that ruined lab. But it didn't stop him from wanting to just go to sleep and escape the pain. Radek was hampering that goal and, friend or not, that was just plain rude. "Can't you leave me to suffer the fruits of your wild goose chase in peace?"

Zelenka smiled. Rodney  _hated_  that! "Then you will not want to see the results of our preliminary studies on the shielding?"

Rodney straightened up, hardly noticing the twinge in his leg as he did so. "The shielding? On the lab? What--did Grodin actually come up with something?"

Radek made a show of great reluctance, but Rodney could recognize the light of fascination in his eyes. And he really wanted to have it, too.

"No," Zelenka said magnanimously. "You are right, I should leave you to sleep. After all, they are not really  _that_  interesting..."

Rodney lunged out and grabbed the datapad from the Czech's hands. Ow. Ow, ow. "Not that interesting, my ass," he griped. Wow... Oh, wow! These were a lot more than interesting!

He looked up into his fellow scientist's eyes. There was no pain there now, no loss, just the pure joy of an incredible puzzle to share with a friend...

And Rodney was just the friend to share it.

"Sit down and tell me  _everything_  you guys did."

* * * * * * *  
The End


End file.
